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Christmas Wishes

Originally published online December 23, 2013

I love Christmas, so when I saw a Christmas story contest on sofurry.com I had to write something for it. Sadly, I missed the contest deadline, but I had so much fun writing it that I may make writing a Christmas story a new tradition.

The Christmas song that had been playing on the stereo system came to an abrupt end as it was forcefully switched off.

“Home for the holidays. Yeah, sure.” Gordon muttered. He walked to the living room sofa, laid down on its cushions, stared up at the ceiling, and sighed.

I wanted to be on my own, and here I am, ‘on my own,’ he thought. The excitement and joy of moving to the city a few months prior had been replaced by loneliness. Gordon had not made very many friends in his short time in his new city, certainly none that he knew well enough to spend time with on Christmas Eve. While he pondered his situation, a loud belch suddenly came from his mouth. Ugh,I guess that double-bacon cheeseburger for dinner wasn’t such a good idea, he thought.

“I wish I had someone to be with tonight.” Gordon said, wistfully. He let out another burp, smacked his lips a few times, closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Hours later, he felt a hand gently tap his shoulder a few times.

“Wake up,” a soft female voice said.

A smile came upon the young man’s face, but he remained asleep. The hand returned; this time it poked his shoulder more forcefully, rousing him from his slumber. Gordon yawned, rubbed his eyes, and groggily opened them to find a smiling female reindeer looking down at him. Her face was covered in light-brown fur and she had slightly darker fur on her snout. To his surprise, she also had blonde hair on her head, from which a pair of ears and a pair of antlers extended.

“Hi.” She said.

Gordon stared back for a moment, and rubbed his eyes again. The reindeer-woman was still there, looking down at him with a smile on her face.

“Are you real?” he asked.

“Mmm-hm. Are you awake?” She asked.

“I don’t know.” A confused Gordon answered. He sat up and looked at the newcomer: The reindeer-woman stood about five and a half feet tall and except for her snout and a patch of white fur on her chest, she was nearly completely covered in light brown fur. Her body was like that of an athletic human woman, and she had hands and feet instead of hooves. She wore a green dress with white trim, and red bracelets on her wrists with sleigh bells attached to them. The bracelets jingled as she took a step back.

“Who, and what, are you?” Gordon asked. He was still not at ease.

“My name is Melody. I am one of the reindeerfolk that live with Santa Claus at the North Pole. You wished for someone to be with tonight, and since you’ve been a good boy this year, I am here to keep you company this Christmas Eve!” She enthusiastically answered.

Gordon still hadn’t fully grasped the reality of the situation. “Really? Wow. Reindeerfolk? I’ve never heard of reindeerfolk. What do you do for Santa Claus?” He asked.

“May I have a seat?” She asked. Gordon moved over to give her some room. Melody sat down, being careful to not get too close. She smoothed out her dress and then continued: “Thank you. We reindeerfolk do everything that elves can’t. Elves are wonderful at making toys, but they are very small people, so Santa used magic to create us to handle the big jobs. But enough about me, tell me about yourself.”

Gordon fidgeted while he answered: “Okay. Um. My name is Gordon and I work at a bank, where I help people get loans to buy houses, that’s pretty neat. I like to play basketball, oh, and watch it, too. Uh, what else…my favorite food is hamburgers, and I like animals.”

“Santa sent you here to keep me company because I like animals?” Gordon asked.

“We couldn’t very well send Mrs. Claus over, now could we?” Melody answered, laughing. Gordon blushed slightly at the joke. “Yes, Gordon, that was part of it. You know, many of the legends you’ve heard about Santa are true, but there are other things that the world doesn’t know about.”

“Like reindeerfolk.” Gordon said, pointing at her.

“Exactly!” Melody replied. “Also, Santa cares for adults, too, even if he is unable to grant their Christmas wishes anymore. But every so often, making Christmas special for an adult is within his means and he takes the opportunity, assuming they’ve been good throughout the year, of course.”

“Of course. So you’re here because of my wish?” he asked.

“Yes, and…well…” Melody paused a moment. “There was another Christmas wish that Santa wanted to grant.”

“Huh. I don’t remember wishing for anything else.” Gordon said.

“It was my wish.” Melody said. She moved closer to Gordon, looked into his eyes and gently put a hand to his cheek. “I also wanted someone to be with tonight.”